In April 2014, the CCI started to increase after four consecutive months of decline. However, that increase proved to be short lived. In May 2014, the CCI remained at almost the same level as in the previous month: the present situation index decreased by 0.7 points and the expectations index decreased by 0.9 points for a total CCI decrease of 0.8 points. As the extent of these changes are not significant, one can say that the CCI has not changed between April and May. This is due to the fact that elections will take place next month (June 2014) and people are waiting for results. In year-on-year terms, the CCI is again below 0, meaning that the CCI was higher in the same period last year than it is now. In May 2013, the decrease in the CCI was much more pronounced than in May 2014 (a drop of 4.8 points). However, the four consecutive months decrease in the CCI (between December 2013 and March 2014) has made the overall CCI lower than last month’s corresponding value. A few things to note: •

Despite the fact that the CCI has not changed significantly overall, from the perspective of the education level of respondents, there are significant differences. Both indices, expectations as well as the present situation, dropped for people with higher education (a drop of 2.7 and 3.7 points respectively), while it increased for other respondents (an increase of 1.3 and 2.8 points respectively). It seems that pre-election promises have positively affected the beliefs of those people without higher education. • At first glance there was not a very big difference between the perceptions of males and females (the overall CCI for males is -12.2 and -12.0 for females). However, if we look at the present situation and expectations indices separately, a difference becomes evident. Males are more pessimistic about the future (the expectations index for males decreased by 3.6 to reach -11.6 points, while it increased by 1.4 points and reached -8.6 points for females), however, they perceive the current situation much positively (the present situation index increased by 3.1 points to reach -12.8 for males, while it dropped by 3.9 points and reached -15.4 points for females). • With regards to age differences, older people’s expectations have continued to drop for the sixth consecutive month. Between November 2013 to May 2014, the CCI for older respondents decreased by 13.0 points. In our methodology the category of older people includes respondents aged over 40. As this group tends to represent the segment of the population that is most economically and socially active, their activity is directly linked to the wellbeing of the Georgian economy. Regional Peculiarities There is a difference in the trajectory of the CCI between respondents in the capital of Georgia and the rest of the country. After a sharp increase in Tbilisi during the previous month (the April 2014 increase was 5.5), the CCI dropped by 4.7 points in May and reached -12.2 points. Whereas the CCI in the rest of Georgia has increased slowly over the last two months and reached -12.1 points (an increase of 1.3 points). The drop in overall CCI was driven by the decline of consumer confidence in Tbilisi. Although both the expectations and the present situation indices decreased in the capital, the decrease was largest in the present situations index (a drop of 6.2 points). In order to look more deeply at the difference between Tbilisi and the rest of Georgia, let’s examine which questions resulted in different answers. As has already been mentioned, the actual values of the CCI in Tbilisi and in the rest of Georgia are very close to one another, -12.2 and -12.1 respectively. So it might be expected that the actual values for each of the separate questions are also close. However, as can be seen from the graph above, the change in Tbilisi was very different from that in the rest of Georgia. If we compare the different responses, question by question between May to April 2014, the main drivers of the differences can be found. The biggest drop in Tbilisi took place in responses to question 10, which concerns people’s evaluation of the proper time to save money. In April 2014, 51.9 percent of respondents answered that they believed it was a good time to save money, while in May 2014 only 37.1 percent said the same. This decrease seems quite significant. The second biggest drop in Tbilisi occurred in responses to question 6, which concerns expected price changes. In April 2014, 35.6 percent of respondents expected either a more rapid or the same rate of price increases, while in May 45 percent had the same expectations. While more Tbilisi citizens are expecting an increase in prices compared to the previous month, in the rest of the Georgia the answers to that question remained close to those of the previous month.